How Dolly Parton Nearly Hired Our Columnist Away

For a credible Oscar campaign, it helps to have three things: money, talent and an ability to connect with people.

Netflix has plenty of the first, and it’s counting on Dolly Parton to serve up the other two. That’s why in October, before Netflix had even released a trailer for its new beauty-pageant comedy, “Dumplin’,” the streaming service rented out the Four Seasons in Beverly Hills for Parton to perform “Girl in the Movies,” a song she penned for the film.

This year’s Oscar race for best original song is awfully crowded, and most presume that “Shallow” from “A Star Is Born” is the unshakable front-runner. Still, Netflix is hoping to press its way into new categories this year, and who better than a two-time nominee like Parton to lead the charge? After all, few people possess star power like the 72-year-old country singer, who aims to dazzle you with her look and disarm you with her voice.

Though she is movingly plain-spoken on her records, Parton’s star persona is anything but plain. On the day I met her at the Four Seasons, she was swaddled in jewelry, zippers and sequins, with blond hair as high as her heels and a physical presence so outsized that you could probably sketch her silhouette from memory. This is all to say that though your Carpetbagger rarely gets star-struck, Parton was serving enough glitz and glamour that even a monk might have asked for her autograph.

What I didn’t expect is that a minute into our conversation, Parton would be star-struck by me.

“God, you sound like a disc jockey!” she enthused, interrupting my first attempt to ask her a question. “My goodness, what a great voice. Do you sing? Are you a bass singer?” Parton laughed, leaning forward. “I’m just really intrigued by your voice!”

Though I’ll admit that in my lower register I can sound something like a gay James Earl Jones, singing produces a less-than-heavenly sound: Your Carpetbagger does not have the range. Still, Dolly would not be deterred. As I tried to interview her, she instead turned the tables, peppering me with questions about my background, my family and that voice.

“You would be a great bass singer,” she continued to insist. “Anyway, this ain’t about you, is it? But I’m more fascinated with you than you are with me, I bet!”

Parton’s egoless curiosity about other people surprised Linda Perry, who produced and co-wrote “Girl in the Movies” with the singer. “She’s very aware of everyone in the room and what their job title is,” Perry told me later in a phone call. “And she’s very considerate of people’s time, even if it’s someone just coming in and bringing coffee.”

To hear Parton tell it, that inquisitiveness has kept her sharp as a storyteller, and it allowed her to write “Girl in the Movies” from the perspective of the title character of “Dumplin’,” Willowdean, an overweight teenager whose participation in a beauty pageant shakes up her small town.

“I can relate to everybody about anything — and that’s good, because as a songwriter, I have to keep my feelings out on my sleeve,” Parton said. “Some people harden their hearts just to get through life, and I think if I do that, I won’t be able to write. I try to keep my heart open, even to the point of having to suffer more because I take everything so personal. But that’s why I can write for other people: I try to keep myself where they are.”

Perry, who has worked with Pink and Christina Aguilera, found Parton’s accessibility to be a marked change from most modern musicians.

“Who are we kidding?” Perry said. “They don’t have any work ethic, and they’re really inconsiderate: They’ll burn bridges, they’ll tear people down. But the old-school mentality Dolly comes from is that you do treat people with respect no matter who they are, even if it’s someone changing your strings or doing your catering. You treat them with respect because that’s what true stars do.”

So if Netflix wanted Parton to woo potential voters, then woo she would. “Everybody I talk to, they don’t drain me,” she said. “I’m learning something about them, which helps me learn something about myself.”

The same goes for interviews, which she has been giving for decades. “I’m getting a whole lot more out of this than you might think,” Parton said, again trying to forecast my future. “Everybody has got something really special, and I see that in you. I’m sitting here thinking about a career for you! I’m listening to you talking, thinking you could work in commercials — I may have to manage you!”

Parton asked for my business card and began to spitball opportunities. “Sometimes I do a song where you could talk bass, even if you don’t sing,” she said. “You’re the kind of person where I’d sing it da da da da da” — here, she lifted her voice to its highest register — “and you’d go, yeeeeeeeah.” The note came out like a slide trombone.

By the time I took my seat in the ballroom of the Four Seasons, where Parton was scheduled to perform “Girl in the Movies” for an industry crowd, her sustained flattery campaign had proved so effective that in my head I began to compose a resignation letter to The Times. “I know I have only recently begun my work as the Carpetbagger,” I mused in my imaginary missive, “but I was just discovered by Dolly Parton, and you can’t turn that down.”

Parton soon took the stage, and notably didn’t demur when it came to justifying her single-song concert. “We’re out politickin’, trying to get our song heard, maybe get nominated for an award on the Oscars,” she told the crowd. Then she launched into “Girl in the Movies,” tapping her black high heels to the beat.

As I listened to Parton sing about young Willowdean yearning to be the star of her own life, I wondered whether I was about to have my own “A Star Is Born” moment. Would Parton pluck me from the crowd to add the occasional well-placed, full-throated “yeeeeeeeah” to her tender ballad? Could I rise to the occasion, despite a lifetime of non-singing?

Alas, it was not to be. As Parton finished her song, she trilled, “Go vote for us!” before she was whisked through a side door and disappeared. It was a performance as brief as my delusions of grandeur, yet no one seemed to mind. Dolly Parton was the only real star in that room. But she sure made it feel contagious.